True or False

Chapter 744: True or False

“Heh heh… You little bastard, you’re vicious!”

Liu Wan twisted his hand at the joint, ignoring the blood streaming from his wound, and reached for the hilt embedded in his back in a desperate attempt to pull out the vajra weapon that had pierced his body.

But no matter what he tried, he couldn’t get it out. The Subduing-Demon Vajra might as well have been welded into his flesh.

“Don’t bother, Senior Liu Wan. Heh heh heh. It won’t come out. I’m a Zuowandao myself. I knew exactly what moves you’d use. I put a lot of effort into conning someone out of this Dharma artifact. It was meant for you, and only you,” Li Huowang said, strolling over to Liu Wan with the casual air of a man out for a walk.

Liu Wan’s face cycled through a storm of emotions as he stared at the young man before him. “You… you were faking it the whole time, weren’t you? Being able to wield Feigang that smoothly—you’re no newcomer. And I actually believed your bullshit.”

“You played the junior in front of me just to set me up? You knew I was laying a trap, so you turned it back on me?”

With that, Liu Wan nodded in grudging approval. “Good. The waves push harder with each tide. Our Zuowandao truly does produce talent. You win, I lose. That Female Heart Mahoraga is yours! I won’t fight you for it!”

Li Huowang shook his head, walking slowly toward him. “Senior Liu Wan is joking. What would I want with a Mahoraga? You know what I’m after, don’t you? Strictly speaking, I don’t even have a real identity yet. I’m not even a true Zuowandao.”

Liu Wan seemed to realize what the other wanted. A flicker of panic crossed his face. His hand instinctively went to his own cheek. This treacherous junior wanted his face.

Li Huowang pulled out a dagger and walked toward him. Liu Wan tried to fight back, but it was too late. In seconds, Li Huowang had dislocated his limbs, leaving him unable to move.

Staring down at Liu Wan, who lay on the ground completely at his mercy, Li Huowang bent over and sat down directly on his chest. His right hand clamped around the old man’s throat. Raising the dagger, he began to cut along the edge of Liu Wan’s skin where it met his face.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve planned this? How long I’ve been watching you in secret? I know how many undercover agents you have. I know all your contingency plans. I even know you have a son.”

Li Huowang peeled off the old Daoist’s face-skin and pressed it directly onto his own face. The next moment, his voice changed to match the old man’s—the same dignified, aged tone.

“But none of that matters to you anymore. Because it’s all mine now.”

Li Huowang stripped off another face-skin—one with a thin, drooping mustache—and plastered it over his own. “Now your secret agents are mine. Your contingencies are mine. Even that son of yours is mine.”

One by one, the faces were peeled away. One by one, they were re-applied to Li Huowang’s face. At last, only one piece remained—a bloody, indistinct square-shaped face marked with the character for ‘Six.’ But Li Huowang’s hands still didn’t stop.

“Heh heh heh, don’t blame me. These are the rules of our Zuowandao. If I can trick everyone into believing that I am Liu Wan, then I am Liu Wan.”

Li Huowang pressed the last face-skin—Liu Wan’s face—over his own and, with a single clean cut, slit the throat of the faceless man beneath him. “So now! You are NOT Liu Wan. I AM!”

Seeing the hatred in the other’s eyes, Li Huowang threw his head back and laughed with unbridled satisfaction. “You were right, Senior! When you’re going to screw someone over, you’ve got to go big! This feels great! Hahaha!!”

As he laughed, Li Huowang’s face changed like pages being flipped in a book, cycling through countless masks, until finally, it settled back into his own face.

He slowly closed his eyes. Then he slowly opened them, pulling his thoughts free from the Zuowandao’s memories.

In the quiet, private room of the inn, Li Huowang sat on a stool, reviewing the memories he had just experienced.

He understood a little more about the Zuowandao now.

“So you have to con people to get Feigang… and then use Feigang to operate the Zuowandao techniques?” Li Huowang thought, replaying the memories in his mind.

As the former Hong Zhong, he had long ago mastered all kinds of Zuowandao Cultivate-the-False divine abilities. The techniques themselves weren’t the problem. What he needed now was the Feigang.

But unlike the Innate Pneuma a Heart-Element had, Feigang could only be obtained by conning people.

To get rid of the side effects of Cultivating the True, he had to Cultivate the False—that much was clear. But how to con people was something he needed to think about carefully. After all, Li Huowang had no real desire to become a true Zuowandao.

Li Huowang glanced over at Li Sui, who was sprawled out on the bed like a starfish. He stood up and walked toward the door.

“Dad, where are you going?”

“Watch the room. I’ll be back soon.”

The capital of Qingqiu stank to high heaven. Cow and horse manure was everywhere. But it was one of the few proper cities in Qingqiu, and despite the ongoing war with the Fa Sect, the streets were still bustling with people and merchants.

“Con people… but how?” Li Huowang muttered, looking around. He spotted a street vendor’s stall and crouched down in front of it.

The Qingqiu stall owner, noticing that Li Huowang’s features were different from those of the local people, stammered in awkward official Mandarin: “Wh-what do you want?”

Li Huowang picked up a comb made of sheep horn from the scattered display of combs and trinkets, running his fingers over it. He looked at the stall owner’s honest, weathered face. His mouth opened, then closed again. Finally, he put the comb down.

“Tch.” Trying to do something that went against his own nature was deeply uncomfortable.

Just as Li Huowang was wondering what to do next, his sharp ears picked up a sound different from the usual hawking and haggling.

Ordinary people aren’t good targets. I can look for some thugs to con. At least that’ll make me feel better. It’ll be like doing the world a favor.

Following the sound, Li Huowang quickly found some young Qingqiu thugs in a corner of an alley, cornering a man with ox-horn knives.

The man’s skin was paler than the locals’; he didn’t look like he was from Qingqiu. Probably a refugee from somewhere else.

“Maybe… I can give it a shot here.” Li Huowang walked toward them.

“Ahem. Fire.”

At the sound of the cough, the Qingqiu thugs turned around and saw that the ground beneath Li Huowang’s feet had burst into roaring flames.

With a light slap of his hand on the ground, the fire surged toward them. Howling in terror, the thugs scrambled up the walls and fled.

After they were gone, Li Huowang stood there for a moment, but he felt nothing. No feedback of Feigang.

“What’s going on? I tricked them. Why didn’t it work?”

He figured it out quickly. He had scared them, sure. But those flames—they were real. Conjured by his Cultivate-the-True arts. The fire was real, and it could have really burned them to death. That wasn’t a con.

“So what… I use Cultivate the True to Cultivate the False? No, wait. What I need is to Cultivate a false semblance with real cultivation that tricks them? I Cultivate a… true falsehood…”

Li Huowang’s brow furrowed. He was starting to confuse himself.